LinkedIn to Be ‘Cautious’ About China Approach, Rajan Says

May 26 (Bloomberg) -- LinkedIn Corp., the first major U.S.
social-media company to go public, said it will be “cautious”
in its approach to China and won’t rush in with a product that
doesn’t work.

China has a potential target market of 100 million
professionals, which is about equal to the company’s current
global subscriber base, Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn’s international
vice president, said at a technology conference in Beijing today.

While LinkedIn doesn’t currently have a local site in China,
it is unique among major U.S. social-networking sites in that
its service isn’t currently blocked by the Chinese government,
which restricts access to Facebook, Twitter and Google Inc.’s
YouTube. LinkedIn’s service was disrupted in China for more than
24 hours Feb. 24-25 after user postings supported calls for
protests in the Asian nation.

“We want to be cautious in our approach to China’s vibrant
Internet market,” Rajan said today. “We don’t want to jump in
and provide something that won’t be successful.”

Huawei Postings

Even without a local site, the company has made headway
with Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies Co., the
nation’s largest maker of equipment for mobile-phone networks.
As of today, Huawei had 14 jobs posted on LinkedIn, and there
were 19,156 users on the site registered as Huawei employees.
That’s equal to about 17 percent of the company’s total of
110,000 workers.

LinkedIn raised $352.8 million in its May 18 initial public
offering and underwriters two days later exercised an
overallotment option for more shares, boosting the offering to
$405.7 million.

A block by China is among circumstances under which “the
value of our network could be negatively impacted,” LinkedIn
said in a March prospectus for the share sale.

China, the world’s largest Internet market with 477 million
Web users, bans pornography, gambling and content critical of
the ruling Communist Party.